About the Author

Ross Douthat has been an Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times since 2009. Previously, he was a senior editor at The Atlantic. He is the author of The Decadent Society, To Change the Church, Bad Religion, and Privilege, and a co-author, with Reihan Salam, of Grand New Party. He is the film critic for National Review. He lives with his wife and four children in New Haven, Connecticut.

Reviews

“A harrowing, and often profound, account of how one man’s life can be laid almost to waste by Fate.”—Wall Street Journal

“Douthat artfully weaves two stories together. The first is the story of his own illness, the increasingly outlandish treatments he is willing to try, and the havoc the affliction wreaks in his life. As he looks for a cure, he uncovers a second story: the strange tale of Lyme disease itself . . .  No two chronic illnesses are exactly alike, but even so this book will likely resonate with anyone who has suffered from a chronic condition or has cared for someone who has.”—Paul W. Gleason, LA Review of Books

“Vulnerable and moving.”—Alyssa Rosenberg, Washington Post

“The Deep Places is a powerful memoir about our fragile hopes in the face of chronic illness. Ross Douthat is calling us all to courage and compassion: courage for those of us who suffer, and compassion to all those who walk alongside.”—Kate Bowler, New York Times bestselling author of Everything Happens for a Reason

“A vividly narrated account . . . Douthat manages a really remarkable thing here: to weave together his story of a body’s pain, a mind’s vacillations, and a spirit’s struggles with an account of how the medical establishment deals with, or simply refuses to deal with, conditions it does not understand. That Douthat can weave all this into a unity and even make the book a kind of page-turner—that’s something special.”—Alan Jacobs, author of How to Think and Breaking Bread with the Dead

“To call it a memoir about illness is to seriously underestimate this beautiful new book. Douthat brings a believer’s heart, a journalist’s curiosity, and a writer’s talent to tell an achingly human story that is, ultimately, about life.”—James Martin, SJ, New York Times bestselling author of Learning to Pray

“I read the book in one sitting. It is so profound and truthful about the human condition. I wanted it to go on and on. I had no idea that Douthat was such a poet of pain and hope.”—Rod Dreher, New York Times bestselling author of Live Not by Lies and The Benedict Option

“This is a great book and it’s going to be important and it’s about a lot more than Lyme disease; to this nonsufferer it made Lyme disease fascinating.”—Peggy Noonan, columnist, The Wall Street Journal